The Jaffrey and Rindge two-day joint Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration kicked off Sunday afternoon with a presentation by Harvard professor Michael Klarman, speaking on the role race has played in politics since the landmark civil rights decisions in the 1960s. 

Klarman was the celebration’s keynote speaker, giving a talk at the Cathedral of the Pines on the theme, “Brown v. Board: The Civil Rights Movement, and Where We Are Today on Race.”

Klarman began his talk on how the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education – which barred state-established school segregation – led to more-sweeping civil rights legislation. As Klarman framed it, much of the backlash in the wake of the decision led to greater public consciousness of the issue, leading to those changes.

Klarman said while the southern United States was still clearly separatist before the ruling, many Southern politicians were making careers on moderate stances. After Brown v. Board was decided, however, it became more important for politicians – even ones who had taken a more-moderate stance – to loudly denounce the decision or other civil rights movements, such as the effort to expand Black suffrage and integration of sports leagues.

“Brown had another, possibly more important backlash consequence. It generated white-on-Black violence, often in settings where it was broadcast to national audiences,” Klarman said.

School desegregation efforts led to violent confrontations, often showing nonviolent Black protesters facing violence by white mobs. National media showed images of protesters set upon by police dogs and fire hoses, in images that stirred national outrage, swinging the amount of Americans who saw civil rights as the nation’s more-important issue from single digits to 52%.

“Brown brought racial conflict in the South to a climax earlier than might otherwise have happened by radicalizing the white South and bringing to the surface the violence that lay at the core of white supremacy,” Klarman said. “The beating of peaceful Black demonstrators by Southern white law enforcement officers repulsed national opinion and led directly to the passage of landmark civil rights legislation.”

Klarman said the strides that have been made toward equality should not be ignored. In 1965, there had never been a single Black Supreme Court justice, but there has been consistently since 1970, and currently there are two. About 60% of Black Americans are registered to vote; there are 60 Black members of Congress, and the nation has seen its first mixed-race president.

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

But, by other measures, Klarman said there is a long way still to go. Black unemployment is twice that of whites. Black families on average control little more than 10% of the wealth of white families, and incarceration rates disproportionately affect Blacks compared to their demographic representation.

Klarman said the work did not end with the passing of civil rights legislation, and even today, the lingering effects of the swing can be felt. The South used to be solidly Democratic, and has since turned almost wholly in the opposite direction politically. And since the days of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, politics has been tied in with the race conversation, an effect that lingers to this day and the 2024 presidential race.

Klarman drew a line between those that express a belief in white supremacy and those that express a “racial resentment,” noting that talking points such as immigration, travel bans from majority-Muslim countries, the funding of the Mexican border wall, banning critical race theory and doing away with race-based affirmative action have become prominent talking points for the Republican Party.

“Racial resentment remains a powerful force in American politics today,” Klarman said.

The Jaffrey-Rindge Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration is scheduled to continue on Monday at 5 p.m. at The Park Theatre in Jaffrey with a talk by Cyndy Jean, a former resident of Rindge and Conant High School graduate speaking on her experiences as a Haitian immigrant growing up in New Hampshire. The event is also scheduled to include a premiere of the song “America the Dream,” by Steve Schuch, and artwork on the theme of “America the Dream” created by Jaffrey and Rindge students. The celebration will also include the announcement of the MilliporeSigma-MLK Student Scholarship.

Tapings from both events are expected to be made available on the MLK Celebration Jaffrey – Rindge Facebook page.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.